Space Hunters
by Mihzuki
Summary: AU. Kagome is an intergalactic bounty hunter with a penchant for bad luck and a bad temper. She and her mentor Sesshoumaru get embroiled in a crazy affair involving Naraku, Shikon shards, and Inuyasha's band of space pirates. Fun & funny space!adventure.
1. Bad Day

_Dedicated to all the Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Cowboy Bebop, Tenchi Muyo!, Outlaw Star, and Dr. Who fans out there. Reach for the stars._

_Inuyasha _belongs to Rumiko Takahashi.

4,554 words, originally posted 1-30-12. Edits posted 5-2-14.

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><p><em><strong>Chapter One: Bad Day<strong>_

"Moon maggots, star piss, and damn it all to the fifth ring," Kagome muttered moodily, giving the compact fission reactor one final smack with her wrench for good measure.

The reactor did not deign to respond.

"AARRGH! _Damn you_," she hissed at it, seething with displeasure. She glared at the thing before backing out of the tight cubby under her small ship's control panel, banging her head on the edge of the panel when she stood too quickly.

"Ow!" Kagome shrieked, eyes watering. She rubbed the fast-forming bump and narrowed her eyes at the controls. "Damn you, too!" she shrieked.

"Really, Higurashi," a voice drawled over her communicator, "_language_."

"Oh, shut it, Taisho. What the hell would you know about it?" she sneered, wishing he were actually there so she could level a glare at him, too. It would be nice to be able to take out her frustration on someone who could actually respond, for a change.

"Well, clearly more than you, if you can't even fix a simple fission reactor problem," he responded coolly.

"Wha- How did you know it was the fission reactor?" Kagome yelped, whipping to see if he'd somehow managed to sneak on board without her knowledge was just enjoying teasing a reaction out of her. It wouldn't be the first time.

"Elementary, my dear Watson," he quipped, and she could practically _feel_ his smirk over the air waves.

"You know what, Taisho? Damn you, too," Kagome sniped. "And another thing! Why the hell didn't you tell me that the new pickup was a Denubian trader? I didn't come equipped to deal with that kind of threat! You know he probably has at least three backups and I didn't pack my sharpshooter," she whined.

"Relax, Higurashi. Keep the faith. I'm sure you're more than capable of taking down four pathetic back-alley traders."

"Yeah… _if I had my sharpshooter_."

"Get creative. I don't have time to tutor you on a takedown _and_ teach you how to fix a simple compact fission reactor blowout," Taisho sighed. She could just imagine him running an irritated hand through his luxurious silver tresses, contemplating rolling his eyes and lamenting the fact that his trainee was a moron.

"Well, you know what?" Kagome seethed, "I don't have time to figure this crap out and talk to you at the same time. Later."

Kagome smashed her finger on the button to her communicator so hard that she jammed her nail, wringing another cry of pain from her lips. This was _not _her day. She knew Taisho wouldn't appreciate being hung up on, but he could take the piss out of her for it later. She had to fix the problem with her fission reactor before Menomaru gave her the slip.

After more than a week of tracking, she had narrowed his location to a well-known black market trading post on a small moon in the Gamma Quadrant. Unfortunately for her, this particular post was home to a variety of unsavory contacts, several of whom either she or Taisho had dealt with in the past. While she might not have Taisho's skill, she wasn't a complete nobody either, and her association with him had helped her start to make a name for herself. In terms of getting jobs, this was a good thing. In terms of making a lot of enemies in really unsavory places, this was a bad thing.

Furthermore, the outpost Menomaru was at really only harbored high-level traders. She had done some sneaky research through a friend at the Intergalactic Databank and discovered that Menomaru was a scumbag pirate from Denubia. They called themselves traders, but what it amounted to was that her capture, which was originally supposed to be an easy, no-nonsense job, was in reality a tough-as-nails bandit who would sell his own mother for the right price. If she had been debriefed with this knowledge, she would have known to pack an arsenal of weapons, including her trusty sharpshooter and any number of tricky disguises to track the bastard down. Denubians were known for being elusive, ruthless, and traveling in packs.

Kagome had instead prepared for a face-to-face confrontation with a coward that might have given her a small chase before giving in for minimal jail time. She had her standard-issue laser, her trusty .38, and two pairs of extra-strength handcuffs. She hadn't even packed her full bag of makeup so she could tart herself up and seduce the rat fink.

No, this was _not_ turning out to be her day.

Even if she did manage to corner and capture him (and hope that he only had _one_ backup or that she could kill the others, since two handcuffs and four skips did not add up), she didn't relish the thought of traveling by herself in a two-room cruiser with a pickup that probably routinely murdered and ate people like her for breakfast. And if she didn't hurry up and fix the damn fission reactor, none her ill-preparedness would matter anyway, since he would be gone before she even got down to the station.

Moon maggots, indeed.

* * *

><p>"When I find that son of a bitch, I'm gonna <em>kill<em> 'im," Inuyasha threatened, pushing his way through the unyielding crowd on Saria, the moon that held the underground trade station in the Gamma Quadrant.

"Inuyasha, calm down," Miroku soothed. "We're not even sure that he's here. You could be getting all worked up for nothing." He rolled his eyes at Sango, running out of patience with their intrepid leader.

"Oh, he's here, all right. I can _smell 'im_," Inuyasha hissed, turning sharply at the next corner and confusing Miroku. The assassin stopped suddenly, causing his partner and teammate to crash into him.

"Hey!" Sango yelled, smacking Miroku on the back of the head. "Watch it!"

Miroku turned and placed both hands on her shoulders, a simpering look in his eye. "I'm sorry, my dear Sango. However can I make it up to you?" His words were at odds with his hand, which was wandering ever-closer to the beautiful mercenary's derrière.

"You can make it up to me by following our idiot captain before we get ourselves lost on this god-forsaken moon," Sango snapped. She reached behind her and grabbed the wrist that was inches from caressing her butt. "And if you touch my ass one more time, I'm taking this as a souvenir."

Miroku hastily removed his arm and held up his hands in a placating manner. "Sorry, sorry."

"Don't you sorry me. Get a move on, you imbecile." Sango spun Miroku around and jammed her gun into the small of his back, urging him forward.

"Ah, romance," Miroku crooned, starting forward at a pace that was much slower than Sango preferred. "Is that your gun, Sango, or are you just happy to see me?"

She rolled her eyes.

"You female space pirates really know how to woo a guy," Miroku complimented. Sango just jammed her gun harder into the small of his back.

"GO!"

"All right, all right," Miroku whined, speeding up to a jog. "No sense of humor. _Yeesh_."

* * *

><p>Sesshoumaru Taisho stared, flabbergasted, at his communication device.<p>

She had hung up on him! That little minx had hung up on him, and no one, _no one_, hung up on Sesshoumaru Taisho.

"You wanna play, little girl?" he muttered under his breath, moving quickly to his considerably larger ship's control panel and tapping in a series of coordinates with practiced fingers. He smirked as his ship sped forward and he heard his mechanic tumble and curse at the sudden change in velocity.

"We'll play."

* * *

><p>Inuyasha stalked forward, his calf-length leather coat billowing behind him like a cloak and sending lesser beings ducking for cover at his obvious ire. There weren't many who didn't know who Inuyasha was, and even fewer who weren't afraid of the illustrious pirate. His name alone struck fear into the hearts of many, and it was just his luck that the bastard he was currently after wasn't one of them.<p>

Inuyasha followed his keen nose to the source of his consternation, the dog ears on his head swiveling and cocking at the odd chatter and clink of glassware ringing through the streets. The Denubian Menomaru was unlikely to be slinging back a cold one and having a friendly afternoon chat with his contact, but you could never be too careful.

He caught another whiff of the trader's stink and took off at a sharp angle, knocking traders and shoppers out of the way in his haste, heedless of their shouted warnings and protests. He could sense Sango and Miroku were still a ways behind him, but he couldn't afford to wait for them to catch up and miss catching the slimy moth.

No one cheated Inuyasha out of a deal. Menomaru was about to learn that the hard way.

The demon trader's reputation preceded him, and he lived up to every slimy, slippery tale like the bug he was. But Inuyasha had needed the money to repair his ship, which seemed to be in a constant state of disarray. Shippo had warned him that if he let one more part deteriorate or failed to fix yet another glitch, they would be stuck on the next world they landed on for quite some time until Inuyasha managed to fix it. Rin had agreed that she was tired of working with parts that were so far past their prime, they would have been in the scrap heap's scrap heap.

Shippo's or Rin's complaints alone were bad enough, but together they were a force to be reckoned with, so Inuyasha had for once taken their words to heart and accepted a job that would more than pay out. They would have been able to replace all the broken parts on the _Tetsusaiga _with money to spare if Menomaru hadn't used them to steal his goods and then _cheated_ them out of their pay.

Inuyasha's crew had delivered the cargo—an easy-to-transport canister of highly illegal and hard-to-find Shikon Jewel Shards, which increased the strength of whatever they were imbedded in by several times—to the designated off-planet space station and headed to Menomaru's moon to pick up the pay, only to discover that Menomaru had packed up and left with no signs of returning. _Tetsusaiga_'s crew had high-tailed it back to the space station only to discover it blown to smithereens with no one in sight.

Furious that they had been played for fools, Inuyasha had spent several single-minded days tracking the Denubian, and now he was seconds from catching up to him taking their missing money out of his hide. Plus, he fully intended to reclaim the shards they had lost.

_No one_ cheated Inuyasha out of a deal and lived to tell about it.

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><p>Kagome gave a shout of triumph as her compact fission reactor whirred to life, shooting off a few warning sparks before settling into a comfortable hum that sent her engine spinning back to life.<p>

"Ha _ha_!" she shouted. "Take that, you little bastard!"

Kagome crawled out of her cubby hole, replaced the metal panel that covered her wires and parts, and sprinted over to the chair at her command center. Typing in the command and coordinates for landing on the moon sparkling in the distance, her small craft jetted toward the surface. Kagome didn't give herself a minute to rejoice before popping back out of the seat and fastening on her gun belt, making doubly sure her handcuffs were in place and her .38 was loaded.

She pocketed some extra bullets, not taking the time to properly insert them into her clip, slapped on some lip balm, and shrugged into her custom leather jacket with the fringe down the sleeves. Giving her hair one last fluff in the mirror in her small restroom, she hurried back to strap herself in for the landing.

Kagome's cruiser, a small, two-room space vessel named _Tenseiga_ that was enough to carry her, the occasional cargo, and up to four passengers if they didn't mind sleeping on the floor, was her pride and joy. It may have been second-hand (from Taisho) and it may have been teeny, but it was _hers_. She kept it immaculate, replaced and fixed the parts herself, and knew her baby inside and out. Of course, now, she realized, she might need to brush up on her mechanical skills in addition to replacing her fission reactor.

The _Tenseiga_ glided to a stop in the docking bay, cutting off a small cargo ship in the process. Kagome shut down her craft, heedless of the waving going on outside from the dock attendants, and scrambled out of her ship. She ignored the shouting from the dock master telling her she simply _couldn't _park there and sprinted toward the flashing sign that marked the entrance to the black market.

_You'd think they'd be a little more reserved about conducting an illegal trade moon, but I suppose this _is_ the Gamma Quadrant_, Kagome thought ruefully, smirking despite herself.

She had managed to get ahold of the information that told her exactly where Menomaru was meeting to seal his trade deal, so she jogged to that section of the market, hoping beyond hope that she wasn't too late.

As she ran, checking signs and stalls as she went, she let her eye wander to the people who frequented the trade moon. The air was chill and dusty, so many of the traders and shoppers wore scarves and jackets that did the double duty of hiding their faces. Though most shoppers wore subdued browns, blacks, tans, and greens, Kagome occasionally spotted a vibrant flash of yellow, red, purple, or green. Some of those flashes, she realized, were loose strands of hair or facial markings peeping out of a collar or hood. Alien races and demons alike were a colorful lot, as evidenced by her boss and many of her skips.

Most stalls consisted of a table and a dark awning, with a lone trader sitting hooded or masked behind the counter. Oftentimes wares were not displayed openly, but whether from fear of thievery or arrest, she wasn't sure. The streets were packed, and even at her quick pace, she constantly had to slow to let someone aside or stop to avoid collision.

_I hate being so small_, Kagome lamented. _People think they can walk all over you. If I were Taisho, these people would have parted like the damned Red Sea to let me through_.

Huffing a sigh of annoyance at the unfairness of the universe in general, Kagome weaved around shoppers and traders, letting loose a small squeal of relief as she saw the sign for her designated stall.

Shoving people out of the way, she hurried toward the booth, but she was stopped by a ring of bystanders crowded around the entrance. She ducked and shoved her way through, eager to see what the fuss was about and hoping beyond hope that Menomaru was still on the moon. The sight that greeted her stopped her in her tracks.

Menomaru, for she was sure it was him as his face matched his file exactly, was being pinned and summarily choked by a burly looking demon in a long brown trench coat and about 30 guns strategically strapped to his person. The demon, dog from the looks of his ears, was loudly threatening the trader, shaking him every so often to punctuate his words. Menomaru kept trying to answer his attacker's questions, but every time he opened his mouth to speak, the demon shook him harder and clamped his hands more securely around Menomaru's throat. All this succeeded in was making Menomaru turn blue and the demon angrier.

Kagome moved forward to berate the demon for stealing her bounty and shoo him out of the way so she could handcuff the moth trader and escort him back to her cruiser. The good thing about this dog demon showing up was that he had already taken care of the Denubian's lackeys: two women in traditional Chinese dress who lay sprawled on the ground in an undignified heap. That was fine with Kagome; she wouldn't have gotten any pay for bringing _them_ in, and they just would have taken up room on her ship and required a pair of handcuffs she didn't have.

It was then that the whole thing went to hell in a hand basket.

As Kagome moved forward, pushing the remainder of the crowd out of the way and unholstering her laser, two human mercenaries sprinted through the crowd, shoving people out of the way and even firing a warning shot. Kagome quickly readied her laser, prepared to take out the threat, if necessary. The humans rushed forward, flanking the demon and leveling their guns at Menomaru. The dog removed one of his hands from Menomaru's throat at a word from the male mercenary and reached to his hip for his gun. He expertly cocked the hammer with his thumb and held the pistol to Menomaru's head. Kagome's went wide and her heart began to pound when she heard him sneer, "Time's up, fucker."

_They're gonna kill my quarry!_ she panicked.

Kagome pounced.

* * *

><p>Inuyasha stalked into the stall where Menomaru was having a hushed conversation with his pathetic excuse of a bodyguard, uncaring of who saw him or witnessed the scene he was about to make.<p>

_Hell, let 'em watch_, he thought. _That'll teach anybody to fuck with me._

Inuyasha entered the booth, reveling in the look of shock on Ruri and Menomaru's faces.

"Peekaboo," Inuyasha leered, slapping Ruri down with a slash of his claws. Blood bloomed through her _cheongsam_ and she stared in horror at her chest. With a cry of rage, Ruri's sister Hari launched herself through a back curtain, sword drawn and to all appearances intent on slashing Inuyasha to ribbons. He batted her aside, knocking her roughly into a table before she landed haphazardly on top of her sister. Inuyasha smirked when both didn't get up again.

Menomaru wasted no time scrabbling toward the entrance when he saw the quick work Inuyasha made of his cohorts, but Inuyasha's speed was no match for the moth. Inuyasha snagged Menomaru by the collar of his coat, slamming him into the stone wall ringing the stall before clamping both hands around the Denubian's neck. Menomaru's fingers clawed at Inuyasha's hands, but after three hard shakes from the dog, he fell silent, face chalk white with terror.

"Alright, now you listen up, you piece of shit maggot," Inuyasha growled, speaking lowly so the crowd that had gathered couldn't overhear. "I'm half inclined to shoot you where you stand for stiffing me my money, but I'm willing to go easy on you and just beat you 'til you cry if you hand over the shards _and _the money nice and easy."

Menomaru was beginning to turn blue, but he managed to curl his lip into a look of disdain and shake his head no, giving a feeble chuckle as he did so.

Inuyasha pulled him back by the neck and slammed him into the wall again, making the moth demon's head crack against the stone. Menomaru gave a low groan and a trickle of blood leaked out where his scalp hit the surface.

"Listen good, maggot breath, 'cause I'm only saying this once," Inuyasha snarled, suddenly out of patience and in no mood to play. "Either you tell me what happened to those shards and you give me my money, or I'm taking you back to my ship, cutting off your wings, shooting you in the stomach, and sending you out the cargo hatch in the middle of deep space, do you understand?"

Menomaru's eyes widened at the threat and he swallowed with difficulty. Inuyasha gave him another hard shake and kicked him in the shin. The Denubian groaned.

"I _said_, do you understand?" Inuyasha growled menacingly.

Menomaru frantically nodded his head yes, opening his mouth to respond, but unable to get any sound out.

Inuyasha let out another low growl, but he loosened his hands a fraction of an inch. "Good. Now _talk_."

"I- I don't—" Menomaru gasped, unable to get anything else out.

"Speak up," Inuyasha snapped, shaking Menomaru again for good measure.

Menomaru swallowed and tried again. "I don't know where the shards _are_," he managed.

"_What_?" Inuyasha hissed, eyes narrowing dangerously.

"The client… Naraku… he knew we had you drop them at the space station. He got them even before we did. I- I was never paid either."

"You're telling me," Inuyasha began, voice low and threatening, "that this Naraku fucker stiffed you just like you did us and now he has my money _and_ my shards?"

Menomaru nodded frantically, Adam's apple bobbing with the effort.

"Don't matter," Inuyasha commented dismissively. "You still owe me my cash. Where is it, old man?"

"D-don't have it—"

He cut off at Inuyasha's rough shake and another kick. "Try again."

"I-I- I'm not _lying,_" he managed. "Bad investments… all gone… the Shikon was s'posed to get me back on my feet."

"Yeah, after you conveniently kept all the profit to yourself," Inuyasha muttered. He vaguely noticed that Miroku and Sango had caught up to him and were flanking his back, prepared to fend off his bodyguards should they wake or any crowd member who decided to play hero. "Fine. Maybe I'll let you live if you tell me where this Naraku idiot is."

"I-I-I don't—"

"You have ten seconds, Menomaru," Inuyasha warned, handing reaching for his belt.

"No, really, Inuyasha, p-please, I—"

"Five seconds." Inuyasha leveled his gun and cocked the hammer, making Menomaru wince.

"But I—"

"Three." He held the gun to his head.

"No, no, you stupid dog, I really don't, I swear—"

"Time's up, fucker."

Before Inuyasha could give Menomaru one final good-bye sneer and pull the trigger, he heard someone shout in the background and he was yanked back, a weight on his shoulder. The person pulled up on his arm and the gun misfired, shooting a whole in the canopy above Menomaru's booth and shocking Inuyasha so much that he let go of Menomaru's neck.

The moth demon crumpled to the ground, but he was up again before Sango and Miroku could even react, shoving his way through the thick crowd and quickly disappearing from sight. Inuyasha saw Miroku and Sango take off after their prey, so Inuyasha rounded on the woman still clinging to his back.

"_What_ the _fuck_?!" he shouted, reaching fruitlessly behind him and attempting to pull her off. She was stuck on like a leech.

"That's my bounty, you asshole, and you almost killed him. I _will not_ let you kill the only source of income I've had in weeks."

Inuyasha, who finally succeeded in pulling her off him, dragged her to his front and fisted his hands into the collar of her shirt. Surprisingly, she was just a little slip of a thing, barely five feet tall and cute as a button. She had wavy black hair that fell to her butt, a deliciously curvy figure, big gray almond eyes, and pouty pink lips that would send any red-blooded male into a lust-filled fantasy. In short, she was a wet dream.

"Wh-what the hell?" Inuyasha yelped cleverly, suddenly at a loss for words.

"I'm an intergalactic bounty hunter, and that was my target. I've been following that slimy son of a bitch for a week and a half and then you had to pop your stupid ass in at the last minute and ruin all my hard work, damn you!"

Clearly, her mouth did not match the rest of her in terms of allure.

Inuyasha shook his head and set her down, suddenly unwilling to lay down the law with a woman a fraction of his size.

"Look, lady. I don't know nothin' about no bounty. But that fucker cheated me out of a payment, and now _neither_ of us got 'im. Besides, don't you bounty hunters have some saying, dead or alive or some shit?"

Kagome grimaced. "Uh, _that_ does not apply to everyone. It does not apply to him. Would _you_ have gotten money if you popped him?"

Inuyasha scratched the back of his neck and wrinkled his nose. "No, but I sure as hell would have felt better about this."

Kagome's eyes widened as she had a sudden thought. "Wait a minute, you said he stiffed you money?"

"Yeah, so, what of it?" Inuyasha scowled down at her.

"That means _you're_ a space pirate."

Inuyasha cocked an arrogant eyebrow. "_And_?"

Kagome whipped out a pair of her extra strength handcuffs, clipped one expertly to her wrist, and had the other one clapped to Inuyasha before he could so much as say "boo."

"You're under arrest," she explained smugly, smirking.

"_Wha_?" Inuyasha blanched, looking confusedly between the girl and the cuffs. "_What the hell, lady_?"

"You're a space pirate. As such, under intergalactic law, you're in violation of code 237, which means _I_ have the right to take you in. I might not get much for you, but it's better than nothing."

Inuyasha's eyes widened and he shook his head in disbelief. "This is ridiculous. You can't just go around arresting whoever the hell you damn well please."

"On the contrary," Kagome replied coolly, "I believe I just did."

Inuyasha's eyes narrowed. "You take these off me, _right now_, or I will _make_ you take them off."

Kagome laughed, waving her uncuffed hand unconcernedly. "Oh, please. What are you going to—"

She was cut off with a low growl from Inuyasha. He glared at her before backing her against the wall and holding her against it with his body weight. She struggled, but her diminutive size was no match for his bulk. She noted absently that he smelled rather nice and felt good pressed up against her, but all such thoughts flew out the window when she heard the cock of his gun.

"Un. Cuff. Me. _Now_," he snarled. Kagome began to panic.

"I-I _can't_," she wailed.

Inuyasha sighed loudly. He was getting tired _real quick_ of people telling him they couldn't follow simple instructions.

"And why not, Galaxy Princess?"

In spite of herself and her situation, Kagome wrinkled her nose at his nickname. "Because," she whined, "the keys are back at my cruiser."

Inuyasha heaved a long-suffering sigh and moved away from the wall, herding Kagome toward the crowd with his gun. She stiffened at the feel of the hard steel at her back.

He leaned down close and breathed in her ear, "This is how it's gonna be, Princess. You're gonna take me to your ship, you're gonna uncuff me, and you're gonna let me leave. And if you don't, I absolutely will not hesitate to shoot your pretty little head right off your shoulders and saw the rest of you off with this blasted piece of metal when I get back to _my_ ship, got it?"

Kagome nodded, swallowing thickly. "Loud and clear."

"Good," Inuyasha muttered, his warm breath making shivers run down her spine. "Get moving."

Kagome trudged forward to the space dock, trying to ignore the feel of the gun at her back and the handsome man behind it.

Nope, this was _definitely_ not her day.

* * *

><p>*Menomaru is an anime-only character from the first Inuyasha movie, <em>Affections Touching Across Time<em>. He is a moth demon and the main enemy of the movie; his team are the two women we see in Chinese dress, Ruri and Hari.


	2. Threat Level Midnight

_Inuyasha _belongs to Rumiko Takahashi.

7,530 words, originally posted 2-27-12. Edits posted 5-2-14.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Chapter Two: Threat Level Midnight<strong>_

It was gone.

Imprisoned. Held captive. Ransomed.

_Impounded_.

Inuyasha and Kagome stared mute and slack-jawed at the dock attendant, their cuffed hands hanging useless and unheeded between them. Inuyasha recovered first, a terrific scowl overtaking his features.

"_What_ do you _mean_, it ain't here?" he snarled loudly, gaze switching incredulously back and forth between Kagome and the attendant. Kagome continued to stare ahead, eyes unfocused.

"I mean that your little… friend… parked her cruiser without a permit. You can't just park your ships anywhere, you know. Not only was there a shipping delay because of her hasty and quite _illegal_ actions"—he sniffed accusingly in Kagome's direction—"she single-handedly backed up incoming traffic for miles."

Inuyasha sneered at Kagome, who wasn't paying a bit of attention to anything to dock attendant had just said. "Alright," Inuyasha said through clenched teeth, taking control of the situation since she was obviously incompetent, if for no other reason than to get the damned cuffs off that much sooner, "where _is it_ so we can go get her blasted ship and get off this piece of shit rock?"

"Impound lot 476," the attendant declared smugly, nose in the air. Inuyasha did a fast mental calculation and blanched.

"But that's… that's _off moon_," he seethed.

"Yes, well," the dock attendant preened, "perhaps that will teach you a lesson not to park your vehicles in restricted areas."

Inuyasha's control snapped.

"I'll teach _you_ about restricted areas!" he yelled, his dominant hand automatically reaching for his gun. The handcuff stopped him short, and he realized with a grimace that shooting this moron would help no one, and would in fact probably only get them into deeper trouble. His body visibly shook with the effort of reining in his temper, but he pulled back, trying to take deep, calming breaths like Rin had taught him.

"How are we supposed to get to the impound lot when our _way_ of getting there is _what's been impounded_?" he asked tightly, eyes screwed shut to ward off a headache that was fast approaching..

"That's your problem, isn't it?" the dock attendant said snootily, turning away without another word. This was probably a good thing, Inuyasha reflected later, because if he hadn't left Inuyasha was likely to have strangled him.

Meanwhile, Kagome was stuck inside her own head.

_Taisho is going to KILL ME!_ she inwardly shrieked over and over, her mind replaying in a loop a scenario in which she called Taisho to inform him, "Gee, sorry, I kind of got your ship impounded on another station because I was too rushed to radio in for a parking permit, and by the way, I also lost my skip, captured a rouge space pirate, and was subsequently kidnapped by him until I remove his handcuffs, or he's going to shoot off my head. Could you please come get me?" And then he appeared beside her in a rush of blinding white light, whipped out his dokkasou, and melted her into a little puddle on the pavement. And her grave would say, "Here Lies Kagome Higurashi, Parking Violator."

As Kagome mentally panicked and wondered how on earth she was going to get out of this situation alive, Inuyasha was resigning himself to calling Shippo to pick them up. He didn't relish the idea of his shipmates being privy to the conundrum in which he was currently ensnared, but he could see no other options.

He could always drag the girl into an alleyway, off her, and _then_ call his crew, but she was actually starting to grow on him, damn it. Besides, she was a tasty little piece, and despite his harsh words earlier, he was contemplating whether he might be able to talk her into having a bit of fun before he sent her on her merry way.

He shook his head to clear his suddenly licentious thoughts. He _really_ needed to get laid if he was thinking about doing it with… _that_.

Inuyasha sighed deeply, rolled his eyes, and pressed the button on his communicator that would connect him directly to his ship.

"Yeah, dog breath, what is it?" the dulcet tones of his pilot drifted over the airwaves.

Inuyasha growled. "You better start showing me some respect, you little runt, or I'm gonna pummel you so hard you won't be able to see straight for a week."

"_Ooooh_," Shippo retorted sarcastically, "I'm shivering in my boots. Listen up, dog boy. I'm not coming to get you until you get our money and our shards. Do you have either of those things in your possession?"

Inuyasha seethed with anger, a muscle in his jaw jumping as he answered reluctantly, "_No_."

"Then no dice, dog breath. You can stay there 'til you rot, for all I care," Shippo spat.

"You little _shit_!" Inuyasha shrieked, startling Kagome out of her reverie. She thought he was talking to her, unable to see the tiny communicator in his ear, and she narrowed her eyes peevishly. This whole situation might be her fault, but he was a _criminal_, and he was still her captive. She certainly felt she deserved better than a moody demon cursing her out, especially when she had bigger things to worry about, like getting Sesshoumaru's cruiser back before he found out and ground her into a pulp.

"I beg your pardon!" Kagome cried. "I refuse to be manhandled or spoken to like this any longer. I have a gun, too, and it's about time you took me seriously and cooperated or I'm going to shoot your balls off and let you bleed out in some dank, dark corner of the universe no one ever looks in. _Got it_?"

Inuyasha shot her an exasperated and very sarcastic look; clearly he didn't think she was capable of carrying through with her threat. She reached for her belt to pull out her .38 and show him just how serious she was, but he knocked her hand away and pinned it to his chest before she even got halfway to her holster. She struggled and spit and cursed, trying vainly to free her hand, but he wasn't even _looking _at her. Instead, his gaze focused at a point on the wall just above her head, as if he was listening very hard or concentrating on something.

Suddenly, he growled and swore violently, accidentally giving Kagome a hard shake in the process that knocked her teeth together and turned her brain to mush. She felt dizzy and abruptly she wished she would wake up from this nightmare, that she hadn't been able to fix her fission reactor after all, and that all this would just go away.

* * *

><p>Shippo heard the voice of a woman that wasn't Sango yelling at Inuyasha over the communicator. He couldn't hear everything she said, but he did catch something about shooting and bleeding out.<p>

"Inuyasha," Shippo snapped, suddenly worried. "What's going on? Is someone hurt?"

"No," he muttered, very low, so low that a human wouldn't hear, "now shut up."

"_Dog breath_," Shippo growled menacingly, "I don't know what the hell is going on or what you got yourself into, but if you're in some kind of trouble, you have to let me know so I can _help _you. God knows what a mess we'll all be in if you're caught by some do-gooding bounty hunter with no brains and a trigger-happy finger!"

Shippo listened to Inuyasha's growl rumble through the speakers. "_Fuck_," he snarled, sounding more frustrated than Shippo had heard in a long time. Then, "Stand up straight. It's bad enough I'm cuffed to you. Don't make me haul your ass all over this slice of hell, too."

"Cuffed?" Shippo wondered. "Cuffed to who? Inuyasha, what's going _on_?"

Inuyasha growled again. "Look, runt, just pick us up. We'll be over by the seventh docking bay. And find out where the hell Miroku and Sango are while you're at it. And _hurry_!"

"But, the shar—"

"_Forget_ about the shards for now, moron! If Miroku and Sango caught that bastard Denubian, then we'll have what we need soon enough, and if they didn't, that means he got away, which means we need to get our asses in gear, _now_!" Inuyasha shouted into his communicator, then shut it off, effectively silencing Shippo and forcing him to follow instructions.

What _was it_ with everyone treating him like the village idiot instead of their captain? He ought to wring all their fucking necks, the mutineers.

Nobody had any damn respect for anybody, these days.

* * *

><p>"Stupid mutt," Shippo muttered, wishing for something to throw across the room. Inuyasha was always getting them into some sort of trouble, and apparently this job was no exception. It seemed like nothing was going well for them, recently. The <em>Tetsusaiga<em> was in major need of some new parts, but without the money from the shards, they were basically up a creek without a paddle.

With a grimace, Shippo realized the metaphor was more than appropriate, and highly likely to become literal, because one of the parts that needed replaced was the _engine_. He sighed loudly, thinking it was a good thing they had Rin.

"What's wrong, Shippo?" said girl asked, wandering into the cockpit. Shippo punched in a series of buttons on his control panel and fired up the ship's engine to meet Inuyasha at the docking bay.

"It's our idiot captain again. He's got into some kind of trouble and he didn't get the money yet," Shippo explained in exasperation, running a hand through his rough red bangs. "He's got some girl with him, someone's been cuffed or something, and we have to pick him up."

Rin frowned, sitting in the co-pilot's seat and strapping in. "I thought he said he would definitely, absolutely get the money back from Menomaru. He _promised_ me a new engine, Shippo."

"Yeah, well, when has Inuyasha ever followed through on anything he's promised?" Shippo questioned sardonically, buckling his own seatbelt and grasping the controls for take off.

"Well, there was that one time he didn't… oh wait, no, that was Miroku…" Rin trailed off, brow wrinkling.

"Don't strain yourself," Shippo said dryly. "That bastard doesn't deserve it."

"Shippo!"

"What? Sorry, but he doesn't," Shippo shrugged, not looking sorry in the least.

They pulled away from the alcove they had been hidden in, and Shippo remembered Inuyasha had asked him to contact Sango and Miroku.

_Asked_… he thought cynically, _ordered is more like. _He pressed the button to his communicator and tapped in to Miroku's frequency.

"Miroku, you there?" he asked once he had a connection.

"What is it?" came Miroku's voice, sounding exasperated.

"Inuyasha told me to contact you. Did you get Menomaru?"

Miroku cursed softly. "We just lost him. He had a shuttle stowed in one of those little hangars and managed to lose us long enough to get away."

"What happened?" Shippo wondered. "Did he run when he saw you? Why isn't Inuyasha with you guys?"

Miroku sighed heavily. "I have no idea what's going on. He went way ahead of us, said he smelled Menomaru. When we finally caught up with him, he had Menomaru against a wall with his gun drawn. Then out of the blue this girl jumped Inuyasha, his gun misfired, and Menomaru ran. Sango and I chased after him without waiting for Inuyasha, figuring he'd catch up and help, but he never showed."

"Yeah, well, he said he doesn't have the money or the shards, and he's cuffed some girl or something?"

"Cuffed a girl?" Miroku asked, confused, and then Shippo heard Sango asking what was going on. There was a scuffle, and suddenly her voice came on.

"Shippo. What is this about Inuyasha and a girl?"

"Uh…" Shippo said intelligently. Sango could be _scary_ when she was mad. "I'm not sure; he wouldn't tell me. It sounded like she was mad at him, though, and all he would say is that I had to come get them _now_. They're at Docking Bay 7. You anywhere close?"

There was more shuffling, Sango muttering something about Inuyasha's balls on a chopping block, and then Miroku came back on. "We're near the docking bay. Meet you there?"

"You got it." Shippo shut off the device in his ear and punched the engine. "They're all meeting us at the docking bay," he told Rin. "We better hurry."

She gave him a bemused smile. "I'm not stopping you."

* * *

><p>Shippo pulled into an alcove off Docking Bay 7, spotting Inuyasha with a firm hand clamped around the arm of a small woman near the entrance to the hangar. It was probably illegal to park here, but they wouldn't there long, and he had no plans of leaving the ship. Inuyasha's face was set into a grim line and as he walked quickly toward the ship, the woman stumbling along behind him, Shippo noticed that their hands were cuffed together.<p>

"Why do you suppose he cuffed her _to_ him?" Rin wondered aloud. Shippo just shook his head and pressed the button to open to doors. Just as Inuyasha disappeared to the back of the ship, Miroku and Sango came jogging into the hangar. Twin looks of recognition crossed their faces when they spotted the _Tetsusaiga_ and they followed Inuyasha inside. Shippo heard the door shut and decided it would be better to wait for instructions from Inuyasha than further risk his wrath.

"I'm going to see what's going on," Rin said, hopping out of her seat. Before she could make it to the door, Inuyasha burst into the cockpit and glared at Shippo.

"Go. _Now_."

Shippo and Rin stared with wide eyes for a moment at the woman fuming and spluttering behind him before Shippo shrugged a shoulder and punched the accelerator. They flew out of the hangar and Inuyasha, Kagome, and Rin were all flung into the far wall of the control room. Shippo heard Rin and the woman yelp and Inuyasha growl, but he figured maybe it would make Inuyasha think twice before issuing such haphazard instructions. He smirked and set a course for space.

* * *

><p>Kagome rubbed the knot forming on her head and examined the cockpit of her captor's ship. The control panel was much larger than her ship's, which she found supremely unfair, as she was in a legitimate business and this ragtag bunch were performing corrupt jobs for back-alley traders. She grimaced at the man still handcuffed to her and then glanced curiously at the room's other two occupants.<p>

There was a small girl staring at her without reservation, though the gun strapped to her hip led Kagome to believe she was anything but innocent. Piloting was a short kitsune, young from the looks of him, comparable to a human in his teenage years. When they breached the moon's atmosphere, his fingers flew over the ship's control panel and the ship's burners shut off so they floated, out of range of Saria's gravity. He spun in his chair and eyed the handcuffed pair suspiciously.

"You mind telling me what this is all about?" the kitsune demanded, lips set into a thin line. Her kidnapper a scowled and opened his mouth, probably to retort with something nasty, when the man and woman who had fired the warning shot into the crowd around Menomaru's stall hurried into the room.

"What the hell was that little stunt? I almost broke my leg!" the woman shouted angrily, rounding on the pilot. He shot her an apologetic glance, but didn't say anything.

"Now, Sango, I'm sure it was an accident," the man said. Sango shot him a bland look that said she knew it was nothing of the sort, but the man fired off a rapid series of questions before she could start a fight.

"Inuyasha, who is this woman? What happened back there with Menomaru? Should we keep looking for him? What are we going to do with her?"

"Shut up!" he spat, eyes narrowed. "It's too crowded in here. Anybody who wants to know what the hell is going on, follow me." He whirled to leave the room, a reluctant Kagome in tow. He tugged roughly on the handcuffs to make her move faster and she stuck her tongue out at the back of his head.

She could hear his crew following behind, but she could care less about staying for their show and tell session. All she wanted was to get out of the handcuffs and get back to her ship. She didn't even care about the bounty anymore, this Inuyasha's or Menomaru's. She just wanted to collect _Tenseiga_ and get the hell out before Sesshoumaru discovered what had happened and maimed her.

He would _not_ be happy she let his ship get impounded. Even if he had technically given it to her for her last birthday.

"Look," she reasoned to his back, "Inuyasha, right? I just want to get out of here. So if you have some kind of universal key or metal cutters or something, we'll just take these off and I'll get out of your hair."

Inuyasha stopped suddenly and whirled to face her. She didn't react quickly enough and bumped into his broad chest, hitting her nose. She rubbed it with her free hand and looked up at his much taller frame. He glowered down at her and she felt herself backing up involuntarily, stopping short when the chain to the cuffs wouldn't let her move any further. He leaned down so he was staring straight into her eyes and she blinked at the unusual color.

Gold. That was weird. The only other person she had ever met with gold eyes was—

Her train of thought was cut off when Inuyasha snarled in a low, gruff voice, "I could always _shoot_ it off. How would you like that, Princess?"

She stared at him with wide eyes and slowly shook her head "no." She was vaguely aware that the rest of his crew had stopped and were curiously watching the exchange. Inuyasha didn't seem to mind and smirked, his smile coming off as rakish and sarcastic all at the same time.

"Then I suggest you keep your pretty little mouth shut. I'm still not above killing you if I have to, though with a body like yours, that sure would be a waste." He cocked his head and leered at her, eyes raking hungrily up and down her form. Kagome felt an angry flush creep up her neck and she opened her mouth to retort angrily, but he whirled and continued walking before she could respond.

The crew followed them to the main part of the ship, which housed a comfortable-looking sitting area and a small kitchen. The central part of the room housed a communal table on which the crew could eat or play cards. All in all, it had rather a homey feel that Kagome never would have expected from a band of space pirates. She felt a bit jealous, which in turn made her even crankier than she already was. She didn't _want_ to be jealous of _pirates_.

Inuyasha shoved Kagome roughly into a chair and loomed over her. "Stay," he commanded, as if _she _were the dog. Her brow furrowed and her nose wrinkled, but before she could insult him accordingly, he turned to his crew, back to her, effectively shutting her out of the conversation.

_Of all the nerve_, she fumed, tuning in to what Inuyasha was saying about _her _skip.

"Menomaru didn't have the money or the shards. Fucker was too damn stupid to get paid before he agreed to take on the job,"—_kind_ _of_ _like_ _us_, someone muttered, but Inuyasha ignored him—"and his client, some guy named Naraku, took the shards from the space station before Menomaru even did. Shit for brains Denubian is so far in debt he don't got nothin' left. I was gonna kill him for stiffin' us, but _this_ brainiac"—he jerked his head at Kagome—"jumped on my gods be damned back before I could shoot and my fucking gun misfired. Menomaru got away."

"Your gun didn't _misfire_, you dumbass!" Kagome shouted from behind him. "I _startled you_ and you pulled the fucking trigger, you stupid shit!"

Inuyasha turned to give her his most vicious glare as the rest of his crew's eyebrows shot into their hair.

"Colorful little thing, isn't she?" Miroku muttered to Shippo. He nodded his head, eyes never leaving the slight girl as Inuyasha rounded on her.

"Look here, Galaxy Princess," he growled at her.

"My _name_ is _Kagome_," she growled back. Inuyasha continued as if she'd never spoken.

"I've been awfully nice to you up until now. You're the first person in a long time who's made it on this ship that has an equally decent chance of getting _off _of it, if you get my drift. Every time you open your mouth, those chances dwindle, so I suggest you _shut it_, before I shut it _for you_. Permanently."

Kagome was highly affronted at his tone of voice. And his choice of words. And his face.

She didn't hesitate to tell him so, as loudly and nastily as she possibly could. Inuyasha, who up until this point had been relatively calm and collected, turned a mottled shade of red and his fists shook with the effort of restraining himself.

"And another thing," Kagome continued, turning her nose in the air and sniffing haughtily. "What's the deal with those little ears of yours? Are you a _puppy_? I mean, really, it's hard to be intimidated with those cute little doggy ears peeping out of that rat's nest you call hair."

Inuyasha saw red, and he really and truly thought for a moment that his crew was about to be witness to a murder. He bent over her still-seated form, hands twitching near her neck, barely holding back from choking her until she turned blue.

"You. Are. _Impossible_," he gritted out through clenched teeth.

She smirked triumphantly and seemed about to shoot him with another barb from her poisonous tongue, but Miroku intervened, stepping between them as best he could with the handcuffs tying them together. Miroku was shocked Inuyasha had managed to hold back as well as he had, but if she continued, he really would kill her. Or knock her out, at the very least. It would be in everyone's best interests to get her off the ship as soon as possible.

"Inuyasha," he began, tone respectful, "if Menomaru didn't have the money or the shards, then maybe we shouldn't concentrate on him right now. Perhaps it would be better to focus on this Naraku. If nothing else, perhaps we can steal the shards back from him and blackmail him for the money."

"No," Inuyasha dismissed curtly, standing straight again. "We're getting Menomaru. I ain't havin' it get around that I let him go after he stiffed me my pay. Not only will we not be able to get any jobs, but there's gonna be some cocky bastards running around if I don't take care of this."

Miroku seemed about to argue, but Inuyasha cut him off, continuing, "Besides, I'm pretty sure he knew more about Naraku than he let on. Maybe he'll be more persuaded to give up some valuable information this time around. And if not," Inuyasha shrugged, "it'll feel good to kill 'im anyway."

"Well, then," Sango said authoritatively, "let's not waste anymore time talking about it. My bet is he went somewhere close. You know the trade ring he belongs to owns several outposts in this area. He probably chose the closest one to camp out on. If he's as dumb as you say he is, chances are he didn't think that far ahead. He obviously wasn't expecting us to catch up with him at all."

Inuyasha nodded his agreement. "Shippo," he snapped.

"I'm on it," the kitsune, muttered, already halfway across the room.

Rin gazed after the young pilot before announcing dejectedly, "I suppose I should go check on the engine."

Inuyasha looked a bit guilty as she trudged out of the room, but his expression cleared quickly and he commanded, "Sango, help me get these blasted things _off_." She raised her eyebrows and Inuyasha began to pull Kagome over toward the table. Kagome balked, digging her feet in as best she could with her boots on the slick metal floor of the ship. Inuyasha turned to give her an exasperated glare.

"What? I thought you wanted them off? Am I growin' on ya?" he asked, a smug grin tilting his lips.

Kagome scoffed, "As _if_. But you can't just go after this guy. You have to drop me at that impound lot first. It's the least you can do."

Inuyasha cocked his eyebrow at her. "The _least_ I could do? You attacked me without provocation, handcuffed me, tried to arrest me, and have delayed me more than I would ever care to admit with your stupid stunts. The least _you_ can do is shut up while I take care of my problem and _hope_ that I'm feeling generous enough to take you back to your ship when this is over."

"Why _you_..." Kagome seethed, gearing up for another major argument. Inuyasha dismissed her with a wave of his hand.

"We haven't got time for this. Sango, come on," he said, glaring impatiently at the girl, "shoot this damn thing off so I can get back to work."

At his words, Kagome started and began pulling as hard as she could on her end of the cuffs, willing him to stop.

"What _now_?" he sighed.

"You said you weren't going to shoot them off!" Kagome yelped, desperately trying to back away and failing. _Damn_ her lack of forethought.

"I said nothing of the sort," Inuyasha smirked, tugging her to him and framing her body against his much larger one, bracing them against the table. "This time, it's just implied that we'll take care not to shoot your hand off in the process."

As he spoke, he yanked her wrist forward and laid it on the table, pulling the chain to the handcuffs taut between them. He held her hand still with his free one and pressed her body into the table so she couldn't wiggle. Kagome stiffened at the unfamiliar feel of a muscled male at her back. Clearly, Inuyasha worked out.

Oh, God. She could not be having thoughts like this _now_. It was severely debilitating, and she needed to focus on the fact that a member of his crew—albeit the most responsible-looking one—was going to willingly shoot in the general direction of her hand, a body part she very much liked and wouldn't mind keeping for another fifty years or so.

Who cared about a few stupid muscles anyway? No six-pack was about to get the best of _her_, damn it!

Kagome wriggled with all her might, which only succeeded in forcing Inuyasha to pin her more securely against the table. _Great,_ she thought, _now I can't move _or _breathe_.

Inuyasha leaned down so that his breath tickled her ear. She valiantly fought against the shiver this invited and failed. She felt him smirk against her hair. "Whoa, there, _Princess_," he breathed, voice low and dripping with sarcasm. "Keep doing that and I'm inclined to keep the handcuffs and move this party to a more _private_ location."

"You're such a _dog_!" she spat, face contorted in fury as she attempted to twist and face him. He chuckled and kept her facing firmly forward.

"Now, Sango," he instructed, and Kagome barely had time to blink before a shot rang out. She shut her eyes tight, waiting for the inevitable pain of a bullet ripping through skin. It never came.

The weight on her shoulders lessened and Inuyasha whispered, "Ah, sweet freedom."

Kagome wrenched herself away from him as fast as her feet could carry her. Instinctively, her hand moved to her .38, but before she could even draw, Sango grabbed her wrist, her grip surprisingly firm.

"I don't think so," she muttered darkly. "Not after I was kind enough to spare those fingers."

Kagome grimaced, but refrained from drawing her weapon. This was turning out to be a _long_ day.

* * *

><p>Sesshoumaru Taisho tried to resist the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose and failed. Pressing his thumb and forefinger to his sinuses, he grated out, in a much calmer tone than he felt, "You're <em>positive<em> that it's been taken to an off-moon impound?"

"Y-yes sir," the dock attendant stuttered. Inuyasha and Kagome would be thrilled to know that it was the same dock attendant who had so tortured them only a few hours prior. The man, who had been so smug in his personal brand of justice earlier, was now fervently wishing that he had paid more close attention to _whom _the vehicle actually belonged.

Taisho was a well-known, highly-paid, no-holds-barred, and—it was rumored—rather violent bounty hunter. He _always_ caught his man, and heaven help those who tried to run. Idle gossip had suggested that in recent years, the revered demon had taken an apprentice—a female, _human_ apprentice—and was teaching her everything he knew.

_Well_, _clearly_ _not_ _everything, _the attendant thought, picturing the moonstruck girl who had stood by as her friend (demon lover?) reamed him out about her ship. _Idiot_ _girl_ _didn't_ _even_ attempt _to_ _get_ _a_ _permit_.

The demon before him sighed, running a clawed hand through long silver hair. The stripes on his cheeks stood out in stark contrast to his pale complexion. All in all, he made a beautiful, if dangerous, picture.

"How much?" he asked, shocking gold eyes trained on the attendant's own boring brown ones.

"I-I beg your pardon?" he stammered.

"How much is it going to cost me to have the ship brought back here?" Sesshoumaru asked blandly, clearly annoyed with the plebian who didn't understand the concepts of trade or bribery.

"Sir... sir, I..." the attendant trailed off, unsure how to break the news to this stoic and fearsome figure. He took a deep breath and tried again. "Sir, it can't be brought back here. Your friend... er, acquaintance... er, assistant..." he cut off at Sesshoumaru's glare and gulped. "The _girl _who parked the ship didn't have a permit. It can't be brought back, it must be picked up and paid for at the impound lot."

To emphasize his point, the attendant showed Sesshoumaru with shaking hands the piece of paper documenting the seizure of the _Tenseiga_ and its lack of permit. Taisho, it seemed, was running out of patience. He leaned over the man, claws poised menacingly. Soon, the sickly sweet smell of poison filled the air and the attendant looked down to see a noxious green substance dripping from Taisho's claws, melting the paper and burning a hole through his desk.

"Gah!" he yelped, backing away quickly. Taisho didn't look impressed.

"Everyone has a price," he explained in a low voice, reaching into his tailored leather coat to pull out a wallet. "And unfortunately, it seems you don't have adequate documentation to support your claim that my _associate_ didn't have a permit. It is the least you can do to have my ship brought back here for the inconvenience of this _unfortunate_ exchange."

As he spoke, Taisho reached into his wallet and pulled out a crisp 100 credit note, slipping it neatly into the front pocket on the dock attendant's vest. He pulled out ten more and set them on the desk, clear of the hole that was still sizzling with his doukkaso. "I, of course, am happy to pay the transport fee, and any employees for their trouble. However, I will have to insist on you offering this service _free_ _of_ _charge_ if you continue to make this difficult."

The dock attendant gulped again and glanced down at the pile of notes on his desk. He blinked once, swept them up, and stuffed them into a pocket.

"Of course, sir. We're happy to be of service, and apologize for any trouble this oversight may have caused."

Sesshoumaru smirked. "How long until my ship arrives?"

The attendant glanced nervously at the clock. "Three hours, sir."

"Make it one," Sesshoumaru demanded crisply, turning to walk back to the _Bakusaiga_.

"Ye-yes, sir," the attendant stammered at his retreating back.

Sesshoumaru strode into the cockpit of his ship, where his mechanic and sidekick of sorts was typing something into the mainframe. His diminutive form was practically engulfed by the large pilot's chair that normally housed Sesshoumaru.

"Has she responded yet?" Sesshoumaru asked coolly, walking confidently to the back of the chair and peering at the work Jaken had already done.

"Not yet, Master Taisho," he responded in a screechy, annoyed tone. "Foolish girl, thinking she can ignore the summons from someone as great, as noble, as revered as—"

"Enough, Jaken," Sesshoumaru rumbled, effectively cutting the little alien's tirade to a swift and immediate halt. If there was one thing Sesshoumaru appreciated about his alien castoff, it was his ability to be obedient, something Higurashi failed in miserably. He supposed, though, that the fact Higurashi was a gorgeous, spirited, courageous human girl somewhat made up for that fact, whereas submissiveness was Jaken's only real appeal.

The tiny alien was an unfortunate acquisition from an equally unfortunate planet. He had chased a skip to the far reaches of the universe, where few stars shone and aliens bred like rabbits. This particular race, a breed of water dwellers that looked like a horrifying cross between frogs and extremely ugly birds, had been enslaved by a tiny but apparently fearsome king. Sesshoumaru had unwittingly freed them from his tyrant rule when the king was caught in the cross-fire between Sesshoumaru and his skip. Jaken had been witness to the whole debacle and pledged his undying loyalty to Sesshoumaru from that day thence. In need of a mechanic at the time, he had accepted the alien's offer, though often he found himself wishing he had declined.

Jaken was lavish in his praise of his demon master, to the point where he openly berated all other beings for their clear inferiority. Needless to say, Jaken and Higurashi did _not _get along, which had been only one of the many reasons Sesshoumaru had gifted her with the _Tenseiga_ for her 22nd birthday. The fact that he was in need of a new ship that better suited his purposes had absolutely nothing to do with it.

In all, Sesshoumaru could only tolerate Jaken or Higurashi one at a time, and Higurashi was the more self-sufficient of the two, so off she went. He routinely regretted this decision, because if he were honest with himself, he greatly preferred Higurashi to Jaken. He offset this annoyance with frequent calls to make sure she was okay (and irritate the hell out of her) and frequent kicks to Jaken's head.

Sesshoumaru moved to sit down and immediately the little alien scrambled from the chair, bowing and scraping at his feet as he backed away, the very picture of subservience. Sesshoumaru ignored him.

He flipped on his communicator and tapped in the code for Higurashi's. He let it attempt to connect for several minutes before finally shutting it off. The demon captain crossed his arms and let out an almost indiscernible huff of air.

_Higurashi _always_ answers_, he thought, thoroughly disgruntled. Why would she not respond? The most obvious answer, and one that rubbed his fur completely the wrong way, was that she was out of range.

But that should be impossible, given the technology and the cost behind the communicators he had bought. The second option was that she had lost the communicator, which would not be completely surprising given her somewhat forgetful nature. Frankly, of all the possibilities, that was the most appealing, since all it meant was he had to buy her a new one. Annoying as that would be.

The third option was that she had shut it off. _That _was the most likely, and there would be hell to pay when he found her if she had indeed shut off her communication device. Of all the rules he laid out for her, that one was unbending. She would have to be in a real pickle to have actually done it, too, which made it all the more disconcerting.

Sesshoumaru sat back in his chair to wait, resisting the urge to try and contact Higurashi one last time. Once his ship (her ship) came back from the impound, he would figure out what to do. As it was, his only options were to sit and stew and think up a suitable punishment for Higurashi when he finally found her.

And he _would_ find her.

If there was a fourth option, one in which Higurashi was dead or incapacitated or otherwise _incapable_ of answering his summons, it did not cross the demon's mind.

Sesshoumaru Taisho did not make a habit of entertaining notions which he believed to be impossible.

* * *

><p>A stream of curses so vile that not even Kagome would have dared to repeat them issued from Inuyasha's mouth upon the discovery of one Menomaru the Denubian.<p>

_That is so disgusting_, Kagome thought, watching with a grim sort of fascination the slow seep of blood that pooled from the trader's throat. She had insisted on coming with Inuyasha's crew on the grounds that Menomaru was still rightfully considered her prey and if Inuyasha wasn't going to have the decency of letting her turn him in, he could at least gift her the original reason for this trip and their troubles.

Inuyasha stubbornly maintained that he would be the one to kill Menomaru, but that she was welcome to his corpse, and whatever she did with it after that was her own business.

Presently, Kagome was sequestered several feet from the half-demon and his companions (Miroku had gleefully informed her on the trip down that Inuyasha's "cute little doggy ears" were simply a sign of his half-human descent), wondering whether it would be worth it to try and cart the body back to her ship and see whether she could get some credits for it.

_Some_ credits was always better than _no_ credits, but the real questions was whether the amount was worth the headache and general grossness of transporting a dead body on her pristine craft.

Meanwhile, an irate Inuyasha huddled with Miroku and Sango to decide what to do next.

"Those shards were too difficult to find to just give them up. Not to mention, they're worth probably three times what Menomaru was going to pay us. I think we should try to find Naraku and get them back," Sango reasoned, tapping her lip in thought.

"I agree," Miroku said seriously. "Maybe if we go back to find Ruri and Hari…"

"Nah, they'll be long gone by now," Inuyasha said. "We gotta head back to Menomaru's planet. We can probably find something there that will at least give us a clue where this bastard hides out."

"Then we need to go now. The longer we wait, the more likely this guy will cover something up. He must be relatively good to pull such a disappearing act."

Inuyasha snorted. "Yeah, that or Menomaru was such a dumb shit that he really didn't get any information before taking the job."

"Either way," Miroku whispered, lowering his voice and shifting his eyes toward Kagome, who was staring in disgusted fascination at Menomaru's corpse, "we shouldn't waste time. And if we take Kagome with us, she's only going to want us to drop her off back on Saria. I don't think you want to take her with us permanently, do you, _mon capitan_?"

"Only about as much as I want a bullet to the brain," Inuyasha scoffed.

"Well, how do you think we should ditch her?" Sango asked conspiratorially. "We can't just _leave_."

A malicious grin spread across Inuyasha's face.

Kagome was still lost in her own thoughts when she heard the engine to the _Tetsusaiga_ fire up. She looked over to where her reluctant companions were grouped and was only marginally surprised that they were no longer there. Not even bothering to race for the ship, confident that there was no physical way she could reach it in time. (And even if she did, what would she do, latch on to the roof?) She watched with a resigned sort of melancholy as the spaceship took for the skies, leaving her stranded with a dead Denubian and her wit for company.

"Moon maggots," she swore, scuffing the toe of her boot against the dirt. She wasn't really surprised. It was just like Inuyasha to do something like this (at least, according to her opinion of him based on several hours' observation). And, well, it wasn't like this hadn't happened to her before. Another demon with startlingly similar gold eyes had also left her stranded on a planet in the middle of nowhere roughly four years ago.

_And I've come full circle_, Kagome thought morosely. _Some bounty hunter I'm turning out to be_.

Positioning herself away from the unfortunate Menomaru, Kagome sat on a rock to ponder her options. This wasn't really so much going over the possibilities as working herself up to turn her communicator back on and call Taisho. She knew she didn't have any other options, but damned if she wasn't nervous to contact her boss.

Taisho was a good teacher; he was fair and honest and pushed her as hard as she could go. Usually this meant that she wanted to kill him, but on the off occasion that he wasn't training her or mocking her, Kagome could reflect on her past experiences and realize that without his constant encouragement, she never would have gotten as far as she had.

Sighing deeply, she resigned herself to her fate and flicked on the communication piece in her ear. It beeped to let her know that she'd missed somewhere in the vicinity of fourteen calls from said demon boss.

_Ohhh, I am so dead_, Kagome thought, before squeezing her eyes shut and pressing his call button.

He picked up almost immediately.

"Where in the hell have you been?" the words were out of his mouth before she could even say hello.

"Eh heh. Taisho! Long time no talk," she grinned sheepishly, hoping he could sense her silent apology through the vast of space.

"Don't give me that," he snapped. "I have one rule, Higurashi. One. Would you care to repeat it to me?"

"Not really," she muttered. He was silent, which she took to mean that he wasn't speaking to her until she recited his bloody rule. Normally, she might take this as a positive sign and just hang up on him until he was in a better mood, but unfortunately, that was not an option given her current predicament.

"Don't shut off your communicator," she chanted dutifully. She heard him sigh, which meant he was probably about thirty seconds from tearing his hair out. Taisho was not an outwardly expressive person.

"Then why was your communicator _not on_ for approximately the last four hours?" he asked, speaking slowly, as if she was a child.

"Oh hell, Taisho," she whined. "I'll explain later. Can you please just come get me?"

"Not until you tell me where you've been," he repeated dryly.

Kagome grit her teeth and swallowed, suddenly feeling very ill. Taisho was also not a very forgiving person.

Sighing dramatically, Kagome recounted her day, starting with the triumphant repair of her compact fission reactor. The story, of course, only went downhill from there, and by the time she was finished, Kagome could _feel_ the waves of righteous indignity pouring off Taisho through the connection. He was _livid._

Kagome had felt it pertinent to leave out some of the more detailed aspects of her adventure, so she was rather dismayed when he asked in a tight, controlled voice, "What is the name of the pirate who kidnapped you?"

"Uh, I'd really rather not say," she responded nervously.

Silence.

"Really, _really _rather not say," Kagome said again after some sixty seconds of dead air.

"Higurashi," he said, his tone measured and very, very dangerous. It was all he needed.

"Inuyasha, ok, his name was _Inuyasha_!"

Silence again, and then, "_Shit_."

Kagome pulled the communicator out of her ear and stared at it incredulously. Taisho did not swear. _Ever._ She put it back in her ear and said, in a very small voice, "Sir?"

Kagome _never_ called Taisho _sir_.

He was quiet for a long time. Finally, in a tired and resigned sort of way, like a man who has been sentenced to his death and knows there is not a thing he can about it, Taisho explained, "Inuyasha is my brother."

Kagome blinked. "I'm sorry, I don't think I heard you right. I could have sworn you just said Inuyasha, the pirate, the no good, _dirty, rotten space pirate_, was your brother," she babbled. "But I must have been mistaken, because things like that don't happen to people in real life. Things like that are the stuff _nightmares_ are made of."

More silence.

"_Son of a BITCH_!"


	3. The Shikon Jewel

_Inuyasha_ belongs to Rumiko Takahashi.

7,770 words, originally posted 5-2-14

**A note**: I'm baa-ack! This chapter was difficult to write, after such a long absence. Let me know if the flow isn't quite right or the humor is substandard. I hope you enjoy it!

This chapter is also a sort-of late birthday present for the wonderful _iheartinuyasha. _Happy birthday, friend!

* * *

><p><em><strong>Chapter 3: The Shikon Jewel<strong>_

Kagome took a deep, fortifying breath as she watched the _Bakusaiga_ land on the hellhole that was the trade outpost she was stranded on. Unfortunately, the thrusters of Taisho's stupid ship chose that moment to send a tidal wave of dirt and probably dead Denubian guts flying her way, so it was less fortifying and more dust ball of death. Kagome reflected, while trying not to hack up a lung, that at least if she died now, she wouldn't have to suffer her demon boss's wrath.

Kagome was still coughing and blinking dusty tears out of her eyes when Taisho strode out of his ship, perfectly pressed and mad as all hell. He stopped several feet in front of her, waiting with ill-concealed impatience as she composed herself.

"Higurashi. Ship. Now." Taisho ordered her stiffly when she finally regained some semblance of normalcy. Kagome had to bite her lip from retorting with a sulky comment of her own. Anything she said now could only make it worse.

She trudged to the entrance of the _Bakusaiga_ and slumped inside, tossing a dirty look at Jaken, who was hunched over the ship's control panel. As if sensing her disdain, Jaken turned from his post and immediately launched into his usual bevy of insults and ridicule.

"Ungrateful, ridiculous human girl," he squalled, working himself up into a lather without any provocation. "How dare you ignore Master Taisho's calls? How dare you force him to come looking for your sorry hide, when he could be solving cases and bringing in miscreants not unlike yourself? How _dare_ you make him squander his hard-earned money on bribery in order to retrieve your ship after you carelessly misplaced it! How dare—"

"Oh, shove it, frog-face," Kagome shot back, kicking his chair as she passed. Jaken yelped as the chair spun in place, and turned an even uglier shade of green that made Kagome snicker.

The chair was slowing to a halt when Taisho marched back inside and commanded Jaken to get them off-moon immediately. The little alien attempted to right himself and follow his master's orders, but he was so dizzy that when he moved forward, he fell out of the chair. Kagome howled with laughter, feeling that it was a more than fair retaliation for the tongue-lashing he'd given her, but she stopped abruptly at the withering glare Taisho sent her way.

She shrunk back into the shadows of the weapon shelves lining the walls as Taisho none-too-gently bumped Jaken out of the way and set the course for space himself. When the _Bakusaiga _had cleared the atmosphere, Taisho stood and faced Kagome, smoothly picking Jaken up by the scruff of his neck and depositing him back in the command chair.

"Higurashi," he began menacingly.

This was it. This was the part where she died. It had been a good life, she supposed, all things considered.

"Are you alright?" he finished, sighing, and Kagome thought her eyes must be popping out of her head.

"Now I _know_ I'm going deaf. First I'm sure I heard you tell me that Inuyasha, space pirate scum of the galaxy, is related to you by blood. And now you just asked me if I'm okay?" she wondered, her tone becoming steadily more shrill with each word.

Ignoring her comment about his brother, Taisho retorted icily, "Customarily, one asks one's protégé about her well-being following abduction."

"Well, then, since you asked, no, _no_, I am not!" Kagome shouted indignantly. "My compact fission reactor is completely broken, and those cost a hell of a lot of credits to get fixed, except I don't have a hell of a lot of credits, or even a hell of a little credits, and even if I did, it wouldn't matter for shit, because my damn ship is locked up in a damn impound lot, because I parked in the damn, stupid loading dock without radioing ahead for a damn, stupid parking pass," Kagome snapped, really getting into the role of tortured victim. "Not only that, but my skip got away and then got dead, my handcuffs were shot in half, that asshole pirate and his asshole crew left me stranded on only the ugliest moon in the universe, I haven't eaten in hours, I have to pee, and Inuyasha's ship is _bigger_ than mine! Do you know how humiliating it is to get kidnapped, hit on, and summarily stranded by a guy who has a bigger ship than you do?!" Kagome wailed, sinking to the ground in a dramatic heap.

"_Hit_ on?" Taisho demanded, eyebrows shooting up.

"Your _brother,_" Kagome spat the word as if it offended her—which it did—"is the most deplorable, disgusting, disgraceful excuse of a creature I have _ever _met. And that's saying something, as I've spent a disturbing amount of time around _Jaken_."

Kagome smirked when the little alien gasped and muttered at her barb, but it was wiped off her face when Taisho surged forward and grasped her arms roughly, shaking her a bit as he brought her to eye level.

"Did he touch you?" he growled, looking her body up and down as if inspecting for rips, tears, or suspicious blood stains. He calmed slightly upon seeing that nothing was amiss, setting her feet back on the ground, but continued to hold her firmly in place.

"No more than necessary, thank _god_," Kagome admitted, a fiery blush creeping up her neck as she remembered the feel of Inuyasha's muscled chest against hers and the way his eyes had raked up and down her form in a much lewder perusal of her attributes.

Willing Taisho not to notice her discomfort, or worse, _question _it, she stepped away from his arms and attempted to change the subject by asking, "What should I do about _Tenseiga_?" She winced a bit as she said it, because she was half-afraid Taisho was going to _keep it_ as punishment for her carelessness after retrieving it from impound.

"It's here," Taisho informed her tersely, leaving the bridge and motioning for Kagome to follow with a jerk of his head. She did so without fuss, because although he was being very nice and cooperative so far about her little _incident_, she could tell he was still boiling mad underneath that unmussed exterior.

"You went and got it for me?" Kagome asked in surprise. Taisho was never one to help those who could help themselves, especially when there was a lesson to be learned.

"I had it brought to the ship before we picked you up," he told her coolly, shooting a perturbed glance back at her as he did so.

"Thanks," Kagome offered meekly, feeling horribly guilty.

"Don't think you're off the hook, Higurashi," Taisho said sternly, stopping and turning to face her. "There _will_ be a price to pay for disobeying my orders, but right now, we have more important matters to attend to."

He turned and continued walking without waiting for her response, clearly expecting her to follow. As they walked, Taisho asked, "Where were the pirates planning on going next?" Kagome noticed that he avoided saying Inuyasha's name whenever possible. She couldn't wait to hear the story behind _that_.

"I'm not really sure," Kagome answered truthfully, shrugging. "But they seemed pretty upset about whatever it is that Menomaru didn't pay them for. They kept mentioning shards and something about a guy named Naraku."

"I've heard that name before," Taisho said. "He's been involved in several high-stakes deals with some nasty criminals. There's been some talk recently underground about an ancient artifact, rumored to have been lost for several millennia, resurfacing. Supposedly, this artifact, known as the Shikon Jewel, was a powerful gem that held a tremendous amount of power, very mysterious and highly dangerous. Underground trade rings are claiming that it has reappeared, albeit in pieces, and are selling shards of the jewel at exorbitant prices. Some just want the shards for the power they provide, but there are a few collectors rumored to be attempting to reassemble the jewel. Naraku is one such collector. It's the type of case I would never let you handle alone," he informed her seriously.

"What should we do?" Kagome asked.

"We need to get ahead of them. I assume they didn't know where they could find Naraku?"

"I got the impression they hadn't even heard of him before today. Inuyasha interrogated Menomaru before I got on Saria, and I think that chickenshit Denubian must have given away more information than he intended. Inuyasha just seemed to want his money," Kagome revealed.

"If they weren't able to retrieve their money or, I assume, the shards they tried to sell from Menomaru, then they will go to the next likely place to get them. We need to go to Menomaru's home planet."

"Denubia?" Kagome wondered. "But that's light years away."

"Then it's a good thing _my _fission reactor isn't irreparably damaged, isn't it?" Taisho drawled. Kagome stuck her tongue out at his back.

Finally, he stopped at the kitchens, striding inside and opening the icebox, only to pull out a wrapped sandwich and a bottle of water. "Go get cleaned up," Taisho instructed, handing Kagome the food and staring pointedly at the dust and dirt covering her clothing. "There's an extra uniform in the med bay. I'll meet you on the bridge when you're done."

"Aye, aye, Captain," Kagome saluted, bowing sarcastically. She might have imagined it, but she was almost _sure_ she saw Taisho's mouth quirk in the tiniest of smiles.

"Don't dawdle," he scolded, before heading back to the con and leaving her to it.

"Don't dawdle, Higurashi," Kagome mocked, making her way slowly in the opposite direction, toward the medical bay. "Clean up, Higurashi. The dirt on your boots offends my pristine visage, Higurashi."

"I can still _hear you_, Higurashi," Taisho called from the hallway.

"Moon maggots."

* * *

><p>Inuyasha cursed as something deep in the bowels of the <em>Tetsusaiga <em>shook and sent him sprawling off his chair in a most unbecoming manner.

"_What_ the _fuck_?" he yelled, propping the chair up with his foot, making it scrape on the cold metal floor of the ship and startling Miroku so badly that he dropped the cards he had just managed to keep hold of in the disturbance.

"Do you mind, Inuyasha?" he asked evenly, picking up his hand again and grimacing at the huge grin overtaking Sango's face, giving away that she had seen his cards and that the odds were apparently not in his favor.

"Not at all," Inuyasha shot back irritably, pushing himself off the floor.

"What was that?" Shippo's voice wondered from their communicators. "We're dead in space up here."

"Shit," Inuyasha muttered, before pressing his communicator. "I'll go find out. Rin's probably fixing it already," he said, stalking from the common room.

"Read 'em and weep," Sango exulted, laying out a full house and smiling triumphantly.

"Ah, Sango," Miroku sighed, laying down his own hand and pushing her winnings—a rare and delicious bag of apples—over to her good naturedly. "Are you sure you only want fruit? I'd be more than happy to pay with my body," he offered, raising an eyebrow suggestively.

A light flush stole up Sango's cheeks, and she was glad it could easily be mistaken for anger. "Only if by that, you mean you'll allow me to use you to experiment with methods of torture that won't leave you completely mangled," she shot back, snatching the apples out of his grip.

"Why, Sango!" Miroku put a hand to his chest in mock surprise. "I had no idea you were into _that _kind of thing."

Sango's hand clenched into a fist and Miroku smirked. "I'll gladly be your sub any time, my dear."

"You're _sick_," Sango shouted, finally hauling off and punching him hard in the arm, sending his chair skidding back several feet. She stalked out of the room after Inuyasha and she could hear Miroku chuckling gleefully behind her.

"That's right baby, just like that," he groaned, and Sango blushed again, despite herself.

"You… you disgust me, Miroku!" she shouted down the hall, and Miroku laughed outright as the she slammed the door to the engine room behind her.

"Who does she think she's fooling?" he muttered to himself, still smiling.

Sango climbed down the ladder leading to the engine room, stomping as much as physically possible and making the soles of her boots ring out as they hit each metal rung.

"That you, Sango?" Inuyasha called.

"It's me," she called back, feeling the tension leave her shoulders as she reached the floor of the warmest part of the ship. "What's wrong?"

"I dunno," Inuyasha said, glaring at Rin's feet. The girl was almost completely underneath the engine, and Sango could hear her tinkering with something under there. The rotor in the main shaft wasn't moving.

"What's _wrong_," her muffled voice floated up to them, "is that we need a new engine. I don't know how many times I've told you this now, sir. We simply can't keep going without a replacement fan and new spark plugs at the very least, but the whole thing is basically shot."

"That doesn't do me a hell of a lot of good in the middle of space, half pint," Inuyasha sneered. "Can you fix the damned thing or not?"

There was some unintelligible muttering, some loud clanks, and the fan roared back to life. Rin scooted out from under the engine, covered in grease. "It'll hold for a little longer," she sighed, "but only because I'm the best mechanic this side of Zordran."

Inuyasha's shoulders slumped visibly in relief and he gave her a small nod of satisfaction. Sango pressed the communicator in her ear. "Shippo, we're back up. How long until we get to Denubia?"

"Maybe another two hours," he responded. "Depends on if we actually manage to go that long without another breakdown."

"I'm doing the best I can with what I have," Rin sniffed, running out of patience.

"Shut up, brat," Inuyasha snapped at Shippo. He depressed his communicator and kneeled beside Rin. "I trust you to keep us up and running," he told her seriously. "I have no doubt that we'll get there eventually and I understand that you're working with inferior parts. But if we don't get to Denubia fast, we'll lose the trail and then there won't be any money to buy your parts until we find another job. Can you keep us running long enough to get to Denubia?"

Rin stared at Inuyasha for several moments, face blank. Finally, she grinned and said, "You can count on me!"

"Thatta girl," Inuyasha praised, ruffling her hair and standing level with Sango once more. "Let's get to the bridge," he said. "I don't want any surprises before we land. "

Sango nodded in agreement and moved toward the ladder. She had just lifted her foot onto the first rung when Inuyasha grabbed her ankle to get her attention.

"Better get Miroku, too. I want to come up with a plan of attack before we arrive."

Sango sneered, thinking that the two of them could plan just fine without that lecherous moron, but she kept her mouth shut. It was going to be a long night.

* * *

><p>Sesshoumaru pressed his forefinger and thumb to the bridge of his nose, willing the monster headache that threatened to emerge back to where it came from. He glanced over at where Kagome was arguing heatedly with Jaken and decided that there was little to no chance of that happening any time soon.<p>

"I already _told you_, you disgusting toad, I didn't call in for a parking pass because I was _trying_ to get to that bastard Menomaru before he got away again!"

"If you were half the bounty hunter Master Taisho is, you wouldn't have lost him in the first place you ungrateful human wench! And how many times do I have to remind you that I am not a toad, I am a Kappan! Kap-pan! Not toad!"

Kagome eyed his diminutive form skeptically. "You sure _look_ like a toad. You know what a toad is, don't you Jaken?" she taunted. "A toad is a weak, slimy Earth creature whose sole accomplishment is making humans grossed out enough that they want to step on them. Oh, and the creatures we use to learn how to dissect things in biology class."

"You _bitch!_" Jaken squawked. "How _dare_ you insult my race with such filthy lies! I should cut out your tongue for such an offense!"

"Why don't you just try it, you pathetic excuse for an alien."

"I will more than try, you piece of human sc—"

"Enough!" Taisho roared, finally losing his temper. "Jaken, get down to the engine room and make sure everything is in order."

Jaken snapped to attention. "Yes, Master Taisho," he simpered, scampering quickly down the hallway and out of sight.

Sesshoumaru turned his glare on Kagome and she had enough sense to look chagrined in the face of his wrath, though to her credit she did not flinch.

"Sit," he commanded, pointing Kagome to the chair Jaken had been occupying. She looked for a moment as though she might argue with him, but at the last minute took a deep breath and obeyed. Sesshoumaru gave a brief mental sigh of relief at her compliance. He didn't exactly relish punishing Kagome, but she was willful enough as it was, and if he didn't at least attempt to exert some control over her, he was afraid she would be completely unmanageable. His handle on her at any given moment was tenuous at the best of times.

"My patience is wearing thin, Higurashi," he warned, voice low. "There is a reason I sent you off in your own ship last year; do not make me regret picking you up off that moon."

At this, Kagome balked. "_What_? You practically forced me to tell you where I was so you could come get me! I thought you were pissed off because you didn't know where I was for every second of every minute of every hour of—"

"Kagome!" Taisho snapped, and she shut up. He rarely used her first name; it was a sign of how annoying she was truly being if Taisho was resorting to familiarity to get her attention.

Sesshoumaru turned his back on Kagome to take a moment to compose himself. She was almost awe-inspiring. He could hunt down the lowliest, dirtiest criminals the underbelly of the universe had to offer, day in and day out, without batting an eyelash. Two hours into having this tiny, human woman on his ship and he was ready to jump out the nearest escape hatch for some peace and quiet.

"We will need to be prepared to face any cohorts of Menomaru's, as well as your space pirates, once we reach Denubia," he said, turning back to face her. He could see her glaring daggers at him for the mention of _her_ pirates, but he ignored her. It would be best to wait to address her childish behavior in a more private location, where they would not be interrupted. "I have not forgotten that you were woefully unprepared when going to face Menomaru the first time," Sesshoumaru reminded her. "You may use any of the available weapons on my ship until we can reacquaint you with your own."

"My, how magnanimous of you, Master Taisho," Kagome snarked, bowing sarcastically.

It was all Sesshoumaru could do not to roll his eyes.

"Just go pick out a sharpshooter," he sighed, recalling her former ire at having forgotten her beloved weapon.

"Won't be the same," Kagome grumbled, standing and making her way to the weapons case.

"It will probably be better," Sesshoumaru drawled, coming up behind her to see which weapons she chose. His eyebrows rose slightly as he watched her tuck a pair of throwing knives into a sheath on her wrist and a rather large handgun into her waistband, in addition to the gleaming new sharpshooter now resting in her hip holster.

"How _dare_ you!" Kagome snarled, whirling around and standing on her tiptoes to get her face as close to his as she could, in an attempt to be intimidating. Sesshoumaru thought she looked rather like an angry cat, with her freshly washed hair frizzing slightly and her cheeks flushed with righteous indignity.

Sesshoumaru liked cats.

"You know my sharpshooter was the first weapon I bought on my own after I made that awesome Yura The Hair capture! She was gross as hell, too, with that weird fetish, _and _I lost four inches of my own gorgeous mane, in case you forgot! I'd like to see how you'd react if someone took a cursed comb to your precious, perfect hair, you smug, star-sucking asshat!" Kagome was breathing hard as she finished her rant, hands balled angrily at her sides and eyes snapping fire.

"Careful, Higurashi," Sesshoumaru warned, stepping closer to her and putting his mouth against her ear. "We're in a confined space, and you can't turn off your comm to get rid of me. I'd watch that volatile little mouth before it gets you in trouble."

Kagome blushed at his proximity and Sesshoumaru smirked when she stumbled away, backward as far as she could go, bringing her flush against the weapons shelves. A flash of desire curled through his stomach seeing Higurashi embarrassed and angry and surrounded by heavy artillery. He should probably watch _his_ mouth, too, before it got _him_ in trouble.

"Just… just don't go insulting my gun like that, Taisho," Kagome tried to brush off her discomfort with a laugh and a wave of her hand. "You know how it gets me all riled up."

"Why do you think I said it?" Sesshoumaru said with a careless shrug. He watched her fists clench again and while he relished pushing her buttons and seeing her come alive, they would be arriving on Denubia in a matter of minutes. "Get strapped in," he ordered, effectively cutting off any further argument and changing the tone of the conversation. "We're about to land."

"Running from a fight, Taisho?" Kagome taunted. "That's not like you."

Sesshoumaru opened his mouth to respond when the ship's automated voice command directed all personnel to prepare to enter the planet's atmosphere. Instead, he stared pointedly at the row of seats to the side of the main con, where he took his own seat and buckled up. Kagome followed suit, grumbling the whole time, yelping when the gun she had shoved into the back of her pants bit into her skin.

"Damned, stupid, big-ass weapons," she complained under her breath, reaching behind her to extract the gun. "That's just like a man to have huge, overinflated excuses for firepower."

"Bigger is always better, Higurashi," Sesshoumaru lectured with only the slightest of smirks, relishing when she blushed brighter than a dying star.

He had forgotten how much fun it was having Higurashi around.

* * *

><p>Inuyasha took a moment to mentally review how many of Menomaru's trade ring they had maimed or murdered in the past ten minutes. More than probably was strictly necessary, but, eh, that was life.<p>

"We've got to be getting close to the boss room!" Inuyasha shouted back to his compatriots as he shot yet another trader in the kneecap.

"But Captain," Miroku yelled back, "We haven't found the boss key yet! It must be hidden in one of the treasure rooms!"

Inuyasha paused, staring disdainfully at the Denubian who was rolling on the ground in agony, clutching his mangled knee. Inuyasha gave him a swift kick in the stomach and smirked when he groaned loudly, tears leaking out the corners of his eyes. "That's actually not a bad idea," he remarked casually as Miroku and Sango caught up to him.

"What is?" Miroku wondered. "I thought we were just kidding."

Sango rolled her eyes. "_Treasure room_, idiot. We're at the headquarters of one of the most successful trade rings in the gamma quadrant."

"_Oh_," Miroku grinned, eyes brightening in recognition. "But how do we want to play it? Surely you don't want to interrogate the leader on your own, Inuyasha?"

Inuyasha pursed his lips in thought before quickly making a decision. "Miroku, you're with me. Sango, radio Rin and have her meet you down here to look for anything we might be able to use or sell. Maybe she'll find one of those damn parts she's been so fucking irritating about."

"I'm on it," Sango said, turning and running in the direction they had just come.

Inuyasha and Miroku moved forward, dispatching enemies when necessary, and in Inuyasha's case, sometimes when not.

"Inuyasha," Miroku sighed in exasperation as the hanyou punched out a female trader who hadn't been aware of their presence only moments before. "You are going to attract unwanted attention if you don't calm down. We need to find their leader before this gets out of hand. We aren't going to be able to take on an entire group of these things if word gets out that we're here.

"Keh," Inuyasha spat, following the hallway the female had been guarding and stopping at a door on the end. "I know it. I guess I'm still frustrated from not getting to handle Galaxy Princess in a more satisfactory manner."

Miroku's eyebrow's shot up and Inuyasha turned to look at him with a crooked grin on his face, showing off glinting fangs. "And yes, I mean that in any and every possible sense."

Miroku only chuckled and pushed ahead of Inuyasha to open the door. She _had_ been a beautiful woman, if feisty. Miroku wouldn't have minded handling her a bit himself.

Both men stepped into a room that was dimly lit and littered with mismatched chairs, small tables, and about twenty pairs of eerily glowing eyes. Chairs scraped as the Denubians stood up and drew their weapons, which ranged from broadswords and throwing stars to laser guns and rifles.

"Well, shit, Miroku," Inuyasha sneered, drawing his favorite gun from a holster at his side and flexing the claws of his left hand menacingly. "Guess we're gonna get that fight you wanted after all."

"Who said I _wanted_ it?" Miroku grunted, pulling out his own weapons and crouching next to Inuyasha, so that they were back to back. "I was merely commenting on how we would be forced to _have it_ if you didn't control your temper."

"Looks like it's happenin' no matter what," Inuyasha remarked lightly, and then raised his voice to address the room in general, who had yet to attack and were staring at Inuyasha and Miroku as if they had two heads.

"Which one of you shit-for-brains is the leader of this crappy operation?" Inuyasha drawled.

Growls and threats could be heard throughout the room, and one alien, taller and larger than the rest, as well much more immaculately dressed, stepped out from the shadows to sniff haughtily at them. "I am the great Denubian Gatenmaru," he announced imperiously. "And _you_ are trespassing."

"You heard the man, Miroku. Let's hurry up and finish so we can get out of their hair."

"Indeed," Miroku agreed, and before the Denubians could so much as blink, Miroku had shot three of them in the head with his pistol and Inuyasha had slashed down as many with his claws.

Gunfire rang out and Inuyasha and Miroku were forced to slow their attack as they dodged bullets and ducked out of the way of clumsily swung swords. Inuyasha cocked his gun and took down the two aliens closest to Gatenmaru, wincing when a shot fired from one of their guns bit into the flesh of his upper arm.

"Damn it," he swore, taking a moment to inspect the rip in his sleeve. "I _loved _this coat. They're hard as hell to find, too."

"Later, Inuyasha," Miroku bit out. One of the traders had finally gotten close enough to do hand-to-hand combat with him, and he was fending off the Denubian's sword attack with a knife that was far too small for the job. "A little help, if you please?"

Inuyasha whirled and shot the trader in the temple. Blood splattered, just missing Inuyasha but covering Miroku's left side in brain matter.

"Yuck," Miroku grimaced, pulling his own jacket away from his body.

"Later," Inuyasha snapped, whirling away to cut down two more traders with his claws. At this point, there were only three traders besides Gatenmaru left in the room. Inuyasha shot one woman in the back as she scrambled to leave the room and recruit reinforcements. Miroku quickly and efficiently took out the remaining two with shots to the chest, and the room was silent save for the shuffling of Gatenmaru's feet on the floor as he backed away from Inuyasha and Miroku.

Inuyasha shot forward just as Gatenmaru turned to run, snagging him by his collar and slamming his head down on the nearest table. Gatenmaru grunted and Inuyasha smirked.

"How about that, Miroku?" he commented over his shoulder. Miroku was busy finding a mostly whole chair to drag over and tie Gatenmaru to. "Guess we could take a whole group of these weaklings after all."

"Miraculous," Miroku drawled, pulling a pair of handcuffs and some industrial ties out of his pockets and binding Gatenmaru's arms and ankles to the chair. Once he was secured, Miroku stood off to the side with his gun in hand, allowing Inuyasha to pull up his own chair and plop down unceremoniously in front of the Denubian trade ring leader.

"Let's chat," Inuyasha said amicably. "Gatenmaru, was it? My name is Inuyasha." He smirked wider at the look of fear that passed over Gatenmaru's face upon learning who he was. "Let me tell you how this is going to go. You're gonna tell me and my friend here everything we want to know about the Shikon shards and some bastard named Naraku. If you don't, we're gonna kill you. Don't get me wrong," he said conversationally, resting his arms and chin on the back of the chair as he stared at Gatenmaru. "We're going to kill you anyway. But the difference will be in _how_ we kill you, so I suggest you cooperate."

Gatenmaru's face contorted into a sneer. "_Naraku_," he spat. "I'll gladly tell you anything you want to know about that two-faced son of a bitch. He's been causing trouble in our circle for weeks now. I sent Menomaru out to bring him back to headquarters so we could deal with him here, but that idiot has yet to send word of any progress."

"Menomaru's dead," Miroku offered. "Killed only a few hours ago on one of your outposts outside of Saria."

"You—!" Gatenmaru wheezed in surprise. "Why kill him if he could lead you to your target?"

"Wasn't us. I mean, it would have been us, but we ran into a bit of a snag on Saria. By the time we caught up to him, somebody had already popped him. Probably Naraku," Inuyasha said. "Smelled like absolute shit," he added as an afterthought.

Gatenmaru grimaced at the crude retelling, but decided to focus on more pertinent matters. He had no desire to be tortured to death, and he knew when he was in over his head.

"What is it you wanted to know about Naraku?" he asked, testing the restraints on his ankles and finding them more than adequate.

"Who the hell is he? And why the fuck does he have my money?"

"Why would _I_ know why he has your money?" Gatenmaru asked.

"Cause your ol' boy Menomaru got the shards you sold to Naraku from _us_. And then he conveniently neglected to pay us our share. I assume on orders from you. Before he got dead, Menomaru was spouting some shit about debts and there not being any money left, especially since Naraku failed to pay _him_."

"That idiot!" Gatenmaru spat. "He always was too stupid for his own good. I assure you if I had known he made the deal with you I would have made sure you were paid. He should have known better than to fuck with someone like you. His behavior shouldn't have reflected on our entire operation. It's too bad you've killed most of us now, or perhaps we could have worked something out."

"Doubtful," Inuyasha sneered. "I wanna know where I can find this Naraku, and I wanna know why he would commission an order for these Shikon shards and then not pay for 'em, not to mention kill to cover his tracks. What's so special about the shards that anybody would go to that much trouble?"

"You haven't heard the legend?" Gatenmaru's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"What legend?" Inuyasha asked, eyes narrowing.

"They say the shards are thousands of years old, and that there are hundreds of them littered across the galaxy. Evidently, if you collect them all, they become the Shikon Jewel, an ancient piece of magic that will grant the user any wish."

Inuyasha and Miroku shared twin expressions of avarice upon this revelation. Something like that would be worth a fortune. Hell, with something like that, they could _wish_ for a fortune.

"So this Naraku is trying to collect all the shards and recreate the Jewel." Miroku confirmed.

"It would seem so," Gatenmaru agreed. "He is only one of many shard collectors who have requested our services. He was, however, the only one with the means to pay for them. We charge quite a hefty fee for even a single shard," he explained.

"A fee that was not passed down to us," Inuyasha growled, face twisting into a scowl. "And we did all the dirty work."

Gatenmaru shrugged as best he could with bound hands. "We have to make money, too."

"Yeah, well, none of this would have been a problem if we had just gotten paid in the first place. I'm gonna strip this place bare before I leave," Inuyasha taunted.

"Look, I was serious when I said we would have cooperated fully if I had known you were who Menomaru dealt with. As a show of my goodwill, I'll tell you something you never would have found out yourself."

"Go on," Miroku prompted, sidling closer and training his gun on Gatenmaru's temple.

Gatenmaru rolled his eyes. "Really, is that necessary? I have been more than helpful." When Miroku didn't move, Gatenmaru looked to Inuyasha, who just shrugged, as if to say, "too bad, so sad."

Gatenmaru sighed. "Fine, then. But if I tell you this, I want you to promise to let me go."

Inuyasha just shrugged again. "We'll see."

Gatenmaru weighed his options, apparently deciding that living even for a few more minutes beat an instant shot to the head. "I don't know where exactly you can find Naraku, but I know where he would likely go next, if he truly is collecting the shards as we suspect. There is another trade ring in the beta quadrant, much larger than ours. They've been dealing with Shikon shard collectors for much longer than we have. They take only the most serious requests, and if Naraku wants to track down the most shards for the least amount of work, he'll go there. He'll have to work with them eventually, as they've created a complete monopoly in that quadrant."

"Name?" Inuyasha prompted.

"Shichinintai. But you won't be able to just waltz in and expect them to give you the information you want. You'll have to show them you're serious, "Gatenmaru warned. "Which comes to my second piece of information. We have two Shikon shards hidden here in the compound; we kept them after the people who commissioned them were unable to pay. Figured they could come in handy. They're in a vault located on the south side of the building, which can be reached by hitting a switch underneath the desk in the southernmost room in the far hallway. There's a code to the vault embedded on a disk in the desk's locked drawer. All you have to do is insert the disk in the slot above the keypad and the vault will open."

Miroku and Inuyasha exchanged looks of surprise. This was _way _more information than they ever expected to get their hands on. It was almost too good to be true.

"I don't have to tell you what will happen if this is a trap," Inuyasha threatened.

"I'm not lying," Gatenmaru assured them. "What would I have to lose? Our trade ring is done now anyway, thanks to _you_."

"Well, fuck," Inuyasha swore, grinning contentedly. "For that I'm almost tempted to let you live."

Gatenmaru perked up; his eyes brightened and he opened his mouth to say something, probably agree wholeheartedly that he deserved to keep his life after such admirable cooperation, but before he could so much as say "boo," Inuyasha shot him in the head. The chair Gatenmaru was tied to tipped over from the force of the shot and Gatenmaru's body landed heavily, blood leaking sluggishly from the hole in his head onto the already-stained floor.

"Then again," Inuyasha informed the corpse, "can't have you blabbin' about any of this to Naraku. Let's go Miroku."

They followed Gatenmaru's instructions and collected the jewel shards, chuckling in disbelief when they encountered no traps or trouble to and from the vault.

"Sango, we're done here," Inuyasha said into his communicator. "Meet us at the ship in five."

"Did you get what we needed?" Sango asked.

"He squealed like a pig," Inuyasha confirmed, exchanging grins with Miroku.

Sango and Rin met them at the end of a hallway near the entrance to the compound, loaded down with knapsacks of ship parts and illegal merchandise. As the four jogged back to _Tetsusaiga_, Inuyasha filled them in on what they had learned, stopping to quickly show off the dully glowing Shikon shards at the end of his story.

"We'll need to make our way to the beta quadrant soon," Inuyasha decided.

"Not before we get my parts," Rin argued. "And not before we sell off this cargo. We'll move faster if we travel light, and we're going to need money before we go to the beta quadrant, at any rate."

Inuyasha scowled, but Sango and Miroku nodded in agreement.

"Rin's right," Sango said. "While we don't want to waste time, we should make sure we're thoroughly prepared before we change quadrants. And the _Tetsusaiga_'s going to need to be in peak condition for long distance travel."

"Well, then what are we standing around yakking for? We're not getting anything done sitting here talkin' about it," Inuyasha sneered.

They continued toward the ship at a slower pace; they could just see the prow peeking over the hill they had parked behind. It became clear as they rounded the bend, however, that something was terribly wrong. The ship was not running and ready for take off like they had planned; Shippo was standing in front of the _Tetsusaiga_ with his hands behind his back and a gun trained on his head.

None other than Kagome stood in front of the whole scene, arms crossed over her chest, fringed jacket flared to show off the sharpshooter strapped to her hip.

"_Great_," Inuyasha muttered to himself. "Her again."

"Maybe this is a good thing," Miroku whispered. "Maybe now she can be _handled_."

"Shut _up_," Inuyasha hissed, straightening to his full height and pulling out two guns, grinning when Kagome's smirk faded and she hesitantly pulled her own weapon.

"Well, well, well," Inuyasha drawled, coming to a stop in front of Kagome and sneering down at the little green demon who had cornered Shippo. "Galaxy Princess. I was wondering how long it would take you to get off that outpost we left you on. I'm impressed. I expected it to take you at least a couple of days."

"Eat dirt and die, scumbag," Kagome shouted, pointing her gun at him with shaking hands.

"Oh, come on," Inuyasha smirked. "No hard feelings, sweetheart. You were too much of a risk to take with us, and I'm much too mean to care what happens to you."

"Yeah, well _you're _too much of a bastard to…" Kagome trailed off, a puzzled frown pulling her lips into a pout. She shook her head as if to clear it. "What is that awful buzzing noise?" she asked.

Inuyasha looked back at Miroku and Sango, but both shook their heads. They couldn't hear anything either. Inuyasha's nose wrinkled. "I don't hear nothin'. And I guarantee you my hearing is ten times better than yours. Sure you're not just going crazy, princess?"

"No, I'm sure… it's coming from your coat!" she accused, pointing a finger at Inuyasha's chest. Inuyasha exchanged worried looks with his crew. That was where he'd stowed the Shikon shards.

"You're hearing things, lady."

"My _name_ is KAGOME!" she shrieked.

"Higurashi," a low voice drawled from behind her, "_really_."

"But Taisho, they—"

Kagome was cut off by a loud yell from Inuyasha that sounded remarkably like a bark. He thought he was mistaken when he heard his brother's voice; they hadn't seen each other or spoken in centuries. When Kagome said _his_ last name while clearly talking to someone else, his resolve faltered. And he couldn't contain the surprise upon seeing his icy older brother casually striding up behind the bane of his existence and scolding her like a wayward pup.

Now that he thought about it, he did remember hearing that his brother had become a bounty hunter. He had never bothered to pay much attention since they avoided each other like the plague; no way would Sesshoumaru breach his stony silence to bring in Inuyasha and his crew. Who would ever have expected them to somehow run into each other based on their mutual connection with an annoyingly persistent and disturbingly attractive human woman?

"Sesshoumaru!" Inuyasha gasped, and his elder sibling turned his attention toward them.

"Inuyasha," Sesshoumaru drawled, lip curling in disgust. "I see you haven't changed a bit." It was not a compliment.

"You're one to talk, Mister Stick-Up-His-Ass," Inuyasha taunted.

"Do not test me, Inuyasha," Sesshoumaru warned. "You've dared to encroach upon what's mine, and you will pay dearly for your transgressions."

"Oh, stuff it, you fucking lunatic," Inuyasha scoffed. "You couldn't beat me in a fight if I had both hands tied behind my back."

The brothers drew on each other faster than human eyes could follow, though Sango, Miroku, and Rin quickly followed suit and trained their weapons on the trio currently holding their pilot captive. Kagome had yet to take her gun off Inuyasha, but she seemed distracted, her head tilting oddly to the side as she listened for something no one else seemed to be able to hear.

They appeared to be at a draw. Inuyasha was contemplating running for it and sequestering inside the Denubian trade compound until they could formulate a plan for Shippo's rescue when all hell broke loose.

Jaken, who was distracted by the posturing taking place between two very dominant demon (or in Inuyasha's case, half-demon) males, screeched in shock and pain when Shippo bit down hard on the hand holding his gun. The laser misfired as it hit the ground, letting off a freak shot headed straight for Inuyasha. His reflexes were much too fast for him to be caught unawares, even by something so surprising, and he ducked and rolled to the side before it could connect. The beam caught the inner breast pocket of Inuyasha's trench coat as he rolled, sending one of the shards flying and putting a huge burn all along the inseam.

"Not again!" Inuyasha cried, landing heavily and inspecting the burn with tender fingers. "Why is everyone so intent on making me replace my wardrobe?"

No one was listening as Miroku, Sango, Kagome, and Jaken all dove for the Shikon shard simultaneously. They landed in a tangled mess on the ground, grunting and swearing in an undignified heap.

"Ouch! That's my nose, Miroku!"

"Ooh, ooh, you're sitting on my hand!"

"Don't you dare, you slimy little toad!"

"Damn it! If you kick me _one more time…"_

"I am not a _toad_, I am a _Kappan_!"

"No, that's not— Ow! Stop it!"

"I got it!" Kagome squealed triumphantly, clutching the shard tightly in her fist and scrambling away from the knot of flailing arms and legs. Sesshoumaru darted forward and pulled her out of the melee, clutching her protectively to his chest and snarling as Inuyasha lunged at her in an attempt to steal back the shard.

"I don't think so, half-breed," Sesshoumaru warned, pushing Kagome behind him.

"I guess we'll get to see who's stronger after all, eh, Sesshoumaru?" Inuyasha taunted, drawing his gun once more.

"Hn," Sesshoumaru agreed, pulling out a rifle.

Rin finished freeing Shippo from his restraints and they stared at each other with wide, frightened eyes before sprinting onto _Tetsusaiga_, loaded down with their plunder from the outpost. It was best to be able to make a quick getaway in these kinds of situations.

Miroku and Sango untangled themselves from Jaken and scrambled behind Inuyasha for support, Miroku giving Jaken one final, swift kick as they did. The little alien squawked in outrage, shouting obscenities at the filthy humans while he high-tailed it back to the _Bakusaiga_, apparently of the same mind as Shippo and Rin.

The tension was reaching fever pitch when Kagome reminded them all just how irritating she could be, if she put her mind to it.

"How do we even know if this is a real shard?" she interrupted, peeking out from behind Taisho and opening her fist to reveal the sliver in her palm. "I don't see what's so special about these things in the first place. I mean, can they _really_ power anything that—"

She stopped speaking when the shard in her hand suddenly started shaking and rose into the air in front of her, apparently of its own volition. The jewel fragment began glinting in the slowly rising Denubian sunshine, gaining in strength and luminosity until it glowed with such dazzling radiance that they all had to squint and turn away from its brilliance. It hovered there for several seconds, burning brighter than the star behind it, before abruptly winking out, falling unobtrusively into Kagome's outstretched fingers.

Silence stretched across the clearing, Sesshoumaru and the remaining members of Inuyasha's party staring at her with undisguised shock.

Kagome tittered nervously, rubbing the back of her neck with her free hand. "Sooo," she said, drawing out the syllables obnoxiously, "_that_ was interesting."

* * *

><p>*Gatenmaru is the moth demon introduced in chapter 184 of Inuyasha, "The Venomous Cocoon" (in the English version manga, it's chapter 6 of volume 19). In the anime, it's episode 51. If you'll remember, the gang comes upon a human village that's been destroyed by bandits, and their leader is a moth demon that spews a venomous cocoon out of his mouth. Inuyasha is forced to fight him while he still doesn't have control of the newly-forged Tetsusaiga, and Sesshoumaru intervenes in the fight after Inuyasha transforms into a demon. Shichinintai is the Japanese term for the Band of Seven.<p>

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